


There are no horses in space

by isms_scribe (satincolt)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, But it's pretty damn close, Gen, Riding a horse is not the same as piloting a Lion, Texan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satincolt/pseuds/isms_scribe
Summary: Keith knows how to ride horses and pilot fighter craft.  The Red Lion isn't either, but she certainly reminds him of a little piebald mare who took him to the stars on a dry Texas afternoon.





	There are no horses in space

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't ridden in months, I'm pining for my horses, you'll never stop me from writing horses into every fanfic I pen.
> 
> You'll also never stop me from abusing commas within one inch of their life, and I will fight anyone who says Texan Keith isn't the best Keith.

“Now, you gotta learn this. You might not always have a car or a speeder or what have you, but you'll always have a horse.”

With that, his father’s big, warm hands wrapped around his ribcage and threw him up onto the back of the brown-and-white mare. A hundred refutations sprang to mind, but Keith kept his mouth shut. Chief among them was _but I'm going to space one day, and there are no horses in space._ He knew how his father felt about space. Guiding hands placed Keith’s feet in the stirrups and his hands on the reins, though his old man held the horse by the bridle, in control. 

It's one of his earliest memories.

Here, in space, a million light years away, it feels so meaningless. There are, after all, no horses in space. A pilot is a very different thing than a rider, and piloting is what Keith does; it's what he’s good at, it's what people rely on him to do. The Red Lion is an inscrutable fusion of machinery and magic, seemingly autonomous and possessing an undeniable personality. The Red Lion is not a horse. Yet every time Keith straps himself into the cockpit, wraps his hands around the thrusters, and steps his feet on the pedals, he finds himself thinking of saddling up a horse.

“Go get some beer and bread,” Keith’s father would say, washing off his hands as he came in from repairing fences on their parcel of sparse Texas land. And Keith would pull his boots on, grab the saddle off the chair in the corner of the cramped kitchen, and round up the piebald mare. He’d throw a Mexican blanket over her back, toss the saddle on, tie up the saddlebags, strap the bridle on her face, and swing into the saddle pretending he was an astronaut doing pre-flight checks before launch. Then he’d kick her into a lope, running the handful of miles to the nearest town wishing she’d transfigure into a rocket and carry him into the stars.

The Red Lion is certainly not for beer and bread runs. It crosses miles in fractions of seconds. Keith doesn't press his heels to its ribs or feel the firm give of its mouth on the other end of the reins. He doesn't smell its sweat and feel its heartbeat. Yet, sitting in the pilot seat, he feels the smooth resistance in the press of the pedals, the slight ratchet to the thrusters, hears the thrum of engines that sometimes sounds like a purr, a roar. He feels the massive, alien consciousness of the beast press up against his own. Feels it lean into him sometimes, like a sly horse would when it's seeing how much it can get away with.

Keith has seen Lance pilot his Blue, seen the way he throws the thrusters around and floors the pedals like he’s a race car driver or an action movie hero. It's never seemed proper to Keith. Even Shiro, whose piloting technique is flawless--nearly an art form--in a fighter craft, seems to handle crudely in the Black Lion. 

His father would sit completely still on the piebald mare’s back, eyes downcast, watching her as she’d execute spin after flawless spin, leap forward at the speed of sound, slide to a fantastic stop in billowing clouds of dust. Keith's old man wouldn't even move a muscle. Keith would scrutinize every second of those rides, trying to find the tells where instructions telegraphed through his dad's heels or along the reins. He could never see any of them.

“It's a conversation, Keith,” his father would say around the reins clenched in his teeth, sweeping his hat off his head while patting the mare’s damp neck. “The better you and her talk, the less anyone else’ll see.”

In Red’s cockpit, Keith is vividly aware he’s sitting inside her head, where her brain should be. The symbolism is not lost on him. He sits lightly on the edge of his seat, eschewing the harness, and lays his palms across the thrusters, fingers barely resting on the ignition and triggers. Straightening his spine, he breathes, tips his weight forward a hair, and feels a grin spread across his cheeks as Red’s engines purr into life. The Lion’s great mind reaches out to him and Keith embraces her, wrapping his limbs around her in a way that feels familiar, feels like Texas days loping back to the ranch with saddlebags of beer and bread. 

Intent guiding his motions, Keith squeezes his calves under the edge of the pilot's seat uselessly, an encouraging click forming on the tip of his tongue. His index fingers brush the ignition switches. Beneath him, Red surges. She shoots down the hangar, carving a path into the stars and tearing the laws of physics under her claws. Keith rolls forward into the awesome power, gripping her mind like a lifeline as he pulls a dozen Gs, leans into the thrusters to urge her on. The speed of light shatters into crystals around them, and time slows almost to a stop.

A breath passes between paladin and Lion.

Keith clicks his tongue.

Red’s engines roar, plunging into a bone-rattling register, pounding in Keith's ears like a massive heartbeat. He whoops, digging his fingers into the thrusters. His body sings, moving with every pitch and roll of her gallop. Every impact of her feet on unseen ground, streaking by impossibly fast, reverberates up through his spine like a conduit. His nerves blaze, electrified, as their bodies become two live wires vibrating at the same frequency.

Nothing can reach them out here.

Nothing can stop her.

He breathes, tightens his core, tips his head back. She rocks back on her heels, dipping her head and sliding to a halt. The dust settles around them. She rights herself, hammering heart swaying him with her exertion. He opens his eyes.

The interior of Red’s cockpit nearly startles him. Keith's heart half expected to open his eyes to the tan Texas vista from the back of the piebald mare. Loosening his grip on the thrusters, Red’s engines drop and her heartbeat quiets to an even background purr. Her contentment spreads around him and he falls in to be enveloped in her warmth and happiness.

“It's nice to finally talk to you,” Keith murmurs, brushing his hands over the control panels. A moment more, then he clicks his tongue and talks silently once more.

Space drops away from them, Red’s gleaming form untouchable, as Keith opens the throttle. They escape the constraints of the known universe. 

They transcend. 

“Keith, where were you?” his father would ask, not unkindly, when Keith stepped into the house windswept and giddy with the sweat-soaked saddle in his arms. Shiro is no different.

“You completely disappeared from the map,” Shiro says, more puzzled than anything else. Keith grins. 

“I just went to get beer and bread.”

He pats Red’s muzzle to feel her purr in his mind. After all, he can hardly tell Shiro he touched the edge of existence on the back of his little piebald mare named Red.

Because there are no horses in space. 

There are Lions, though.


End file.
